In the beginning, it means devastation conflagration incineration annihilation

Each of those feeling remain or don’t

Depending on the day or the minute

It’s going to bed alone and leaving the TV or radio on low so that the hum of voices distracts you as you wake through the night and if you don’t have the distraction your mind hums with memories and the grief that no more memories will ever be made.

Grasping his pillow close and arranging your body sometimes unconsciously to the side you slept when you slept with him so that he could curl his body around you his arm curving under you his other arm draping over you his hand curled around your breast.

It’s waking each morning and wishing that you could have that unsuspecting moment that you’re waking to your old life like you hear people speak about but your body and mind are instantly aware that he’s still dead and this is another morning and you’re exhausted because your mind has been going all night long even when you slept but really didn’t sleep.

And you make the decision to get up anyways because you can’t just lay abed endlessly right?

Go through a morning routine getting ready shower don’t cry or yes, do cry try to push away the thoughts that I just can’t do this again but you do it again anyways because what other choice is there?

Breakfast even though you really aren’t hungry but what does hunger have to do with eating its habit more than anything or eat because you aren’t hungry but you have to do something and the clock says breakfast time and you eat but you don’t taste because food doesn’t matter to you anymore.

It’s going through your day whatever your day used to mean but now doesn’t except that distractions help sometimes but not really because there underneath everything is your new pulsebeat of dead dead dead he’s gone gone gone.

Try to get home early if you’re out because there’s just something about that time of the early evening that makes missing him more powerful than all the powerful moments of the earlier part of the day. Once you get home wherever home is now home was when I was with him wander around the kitchen the bedroom the house turn the TV on for noise eat food out of the fridge because who cares eat junk.

Go to bed because you need the day to end or don’t go to bed because you can’t bear being alone in bed so sleep on the couch somehow the back of the couch against your back helps you feel more secure.

One season follows another and the days drift and bend and each season carries its’ own cuts and bruises of remembrance and oh he would love the colors of the flowers the trees the snow the ocean that gust of wind feel that feeling in the air and he isn’t here and my soul can’t bear this beauty and I’m not ignoring the beauty but the beauty hurts because I’m seeing it feeling it being it on my own and that cuts into me again like a chain saw.

We’re supposed to be grateful we had what we had and I am and we’re complimented on being so strong and I am but also exhausted from being strong encouraged to remember and I do but what does that have to do with anything I wonder and we’re told that look you have your kids and your grandkids and your life and other people who love you and I do and I know that but what the fuck does that have to do with anything and how on god’s green earth does any of that change anything or make up for anything most especially the fact that for god’s sake he’s dead?

What do you say when there are no words in our language to fully and really and completely tell you that I say what I need to say and do what I need to do and I’m whatever I need to be to meet this fucking real life challenge but none of it means a damn thing and I’m not pretending anything to anyone but life does fucking go on and I have to support myself and shop and do all the daily tasks that constitute living but if you really really really want to know the truth with no qualifications and no prevarications…

My heart is broken and I’m not really strong and I hate living without him and life is unbearable and I’ve run out of words and I have no energy for this and I’m really not okay but I have to be okay so I try to be okay but my soul inside this body that shows up every day even as I’m doing and talking and going through each day is just missing him as he is missing from me and it hurts and there isn’t one damn thing that doesn’t remind me of him including the very act of breathing. And all the milestones and holidays and anniversaries and birthdays amid the everydays make me miss him even more and I want nothing more than to be held by him feel his arms around me his lips on mine feel safe again feel secure again dance with him sleep with him have wild sex with him wake with him share nothing and everything important with him live again knowing how special I am to someone in this life just have him back please please please…

Alison: whenever I read something you have written I feel like you must inhabit my mind. We were apparently both very blessed to have these amazing men who loved us like no other. Unfortunately now we have to pay the price of that wonderful , precious love. I just wish it didn’t have to be for the rest of my life because this pain is so overwhelming at times. And yes, I’ve grown really good at faking it but I’m growing weary of that. So sometimes now when someone really dares to ask how I’m doing I give them a little bit of the truth. Just can’t always fake it. And I miss him so damn much. Hang in there. You are such a testament to the great love so many of us had.

Marybeth, you are as much a testament, and my heart hurts for your pain as much as my own. Reading is the best, I think, when we can say yes, yes, yes, this is what is in my heart too. I’m so touched that my words touched YOU, and I hope you stay with me as we, and many others, find our way through this fucking widowhood ❤

Meave, I’m touched that my meanderings spoke to you. I write as honestly as I can about this widow experience, and I write what I know I’d want to read if I were searching for something. I hope you stay with me here, and, if you can, find my fb page of the same name. I post daily there. Nothin’ but Love to you as you find your way through this~